Can we agree, however, that those days are now long gone? Many of us remember having to sit through the coaches meeting......wade through the throngs of people crowded around the cork board for updates.....trying to figure out which site we are at tomorrow..... heck if we are going to stroll down memory lane, I still remember rotary phones. How in the world did we survive without cell phones? Sure, it's a valid argument to a point but given the advances of the structure of large events today, getting info sooner rather than later is more the norm and expectation, not the exception.

More to the point of this thread are you sure AES is the group doing the 'ranking' for the event you are thinking of? I think in some cases AES may do the seeding and in other cases AES may simply be the vehicle driving the output but not necessarily the preliminary input. My guess is like any business AES likely has different levels of service. It can be all inclusive or it can be piece-meal to a certain extent. I would refer to the organizers of the event for your answer on that. I've been to AES tied events where the information was out a week ahead of time and I've been to AES events where it was much closer to the start date.